


Company

by wynnebat



Category: House of Cards (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Engagement, F/M, Season/Series 02, blanket warning for canon events and resulting consent issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-23 00:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11391894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: Loneliness and obsession make for amicable bedfellows.





	Company

**Author's Note:**

> Rewatched the first two seasons and remembered how much I shipped this trainwreck. <3

When Rachel was little, she'd had this bag. It was even smaller than her kindergarten backpack, barely big enough to hold a stuffed animal inside. She'd packed it full of things she thought she'd need when she finally decided to run away: a spare toothbrush, hotel-sized shampoo and conditioner bottles from their trip to Niagara Falls, twenty dollars in change and small bills, a coloring book and three markers. Red, blue, purple. She'd come home from school one day to find it gone and a lecture from her mother about hoarding and thought herself lucky that at least she wasn't getting one from her dad, because he wouldn't stop at words. She'd known that even then.

Now she has a suitcase full of everything she owns sitting on a mattress in an apartment in Maryland that she doesn't want but is stuck in anyway. She can't run away with it or without it. Doug would know. Doug always knows everything; she's never met his boss, but he must be even worse, being the boss of such a shitty man.

She's sitting down, all out of tears, and he's just standing there and lecturing her. His voice is soft. It always is, even when he's threatening her.

"Don't talk to anyone. That includes your neighbors, your coworkers, anyone. Go to work and go home. The first month is paid for."

He stands there, waiting, until she spits out, "Fine."

"Good," he says, although he must hear how much she hates him. It's as clear as day. She wishes she'd never gotten involved with Peter Russo, but wishes never do anything.

And she does hate him. But no more than she's hated other people, and a lot less than she's hated certain people. Suddenly, horribly, she just doesn't want to be alone. Doug is nearly out the door when she says, "I need to go grocery shopping."

"I left some money on the table."

"I need things. Cans, kitchen stuff, meat. I can't carry it all on the bus." She doesn't even know why she's still talking. Just let him leave, she tells herself. It's better to have no one's company at all than have his.

He takes a moment, and then, "Alright. Let's go."

The closest grocery store to her house is the same discount grocery chain she'd gone to in DC. Funny how some things just don't change. Doug goes inside with her as though he thinks she's going to run and walks like a gargoyle next to her, his face completely blank. Rachel grabs a cart and starts shoving things inside. She's got some money saved up, but she's pretty sure Doug will take over and pay, so she doesn't worry too much about the final cost. If she can burn a small hole in Doug's accounts, it's all the better.

Five minutes and four aisles later, Doug's lagging behind. It's not freedom, but it's the closest she gets, when Doug's away and she knows he could be anywhere but at least he isn't right there next to her. She's used to the feeling. When she's grabbed all she can think of, she starts to look around for him, their roles suddenly reversed.

"Mine doesn't like shopping either," a woman nearby says, smiling at her.

Rachel swallows. "Yeah."

"Is that him?"

Looking at where the woman's pointing, she sees Doug standing by the flower arrangements. "That's him."

"He seems sweet. I've been trying to corral mine into buying me flowers for years, but he always complains that they're just going to die in a couple days anyway."

"You could always buy them for yourself. Maybe he'll get on board after." Belatedly, Rachel realizes she's already broken a rule, but Doug's back is still turned.

"You know what, I think I will," the woman says and heads off toward the flowers with that same smile. When she gets there, she turns to Doug. Rachel's too far away to hear what they're saying, but she doubts it's anything good. Fuck Peter Russo. If not for him, she wouldn't be here. She'd still be fucking whichever stranger could pay, but at least she could talk to whoever she wanted. She'd been a nobody. Now she's still a nobody, but she's caught in a web between people who give too much of a shit about her for the worst reasons.

Doug's face is expressionless when he meets her near the registers.

"She just started talking to me," Rachel says before he can. She sounds angrier than she'd meant to.

"Avoid her," Doug recommends.

He still buys all her shit. After, he helps her unload, and Rachel wonders who taught him such inconsistent manners. At least he doesn't get into the rules again before he leaves. It's a small mercy.

 

*

 

The job sucks. That's all she can say. Her boss believes his workers both capable of a superhuman number of calls per hour and also completely lazy morons who just don't bother. Rachel hasn't used a phone so much in years, maybe never. She hadn't even had a cell phone for a couple years.

She wakes up, she goes to work, she goes home, she wakes up. At work, she's placing calls so fast that there's barely any time to think, but at home she lays on her bed and looks up at the chipping paint on the ceiling and her chest aches with something stupid. People are shitty. They hurt you and they don't care. But without anyone at all, she's just so bored. And then she's just lonely.

Awkward conversations she can't get out of with coworkers just as bored as her don't really fill the void. The occasional book she borrows from a library near her work doesn't manage to entertain her for long.

She hasn't had sex in months.

It's not like she misses men's grubby hands all over her, but at least then they'd look at her. She feels like a cog in a machine that those politicians keep shoving away and away without a second glance. She won't talk. She won't. It's nowhere near worth it. But by now, she knows they won't understand.

It's a long enough drive from DC to be bothersome, but Doug keeps stopping by. Most of the time, Rachel hopes he dies in an accident on the way, but sometimes she looks at him and wishes he'd just talk instead of limiting himself to orders and questions. She hates him, but he's familiar.

 

*

 

She hits the only number she knows by heart, given to her on a slip of paper with the order to memorize and get rid of it. As the phone rings, Rachel thinks maybe she means to spill everything before Doug finds out. (Doug always finds out.)

 _I called my mom,_ she gets ready to say. _I asked for her from a nurse, but I dropped the call before I could speak to her._

"Doug Stamper," says the man himself.

Rachel swallows, but her voice comes out even as she says, "Hello, my name is Rachel and I'm calling to ask if you have a moment to talk about our second amendment rights."

There's a pause. "Is everything alright?"

"I'm just calling you about the importance of having our voices heard in congress." Her voice wavers.

"Tell me about the second amendment."

She rambles on, half sticking to the script, half making it up. Rachel doesn't give a shit about the second amendment. If she wants a gun, she knows where she can go to buy one without anyone getting in her way with papers and shit. And Doug works for Frank Underwood, who's a democrat from the south who doesn't raise much of a fuss about guns, but talks about better background checks after school shootings. (Rachel watched three hours of youtube videos of Underwood when she was doing research. She'd thought him full of shit; now she just hopes she never, ever has to meet him.)

When she runs out of things to say, she's surprised she feels better. It's the first time she's been anything but irritated and bored after a call.

"You have a good voice," Doug tells her. It's the first time he's said something with his voice instead of his eyes.

He hangs up.

Doug's car is in the parking lot when she gets out of work. Rachel doesn't say anything past a hello. He doesn't either.

 

*

 

She lies in bed at night and thinks she could be packed in under ten minutes. She could take the bus far away. She could escape.

Doug would find her, but until he did, she'd get a taste of freedom.

And by the next morning she might be dead like Peter. It may have been ruled a suicide, but there's something about the cold way Doug treated his death the one time he spoke of it that sends shivers down her spine. It's not that she fears death; she doesn't even have much to live for. But she doesn't seek it out. There's a level her life has to reach before she runs like she ran when she was sixteen and Doug hasn't gotten there yet.

He probably will, she knows. And she'll run, and he'll find her, and she'll die. Maybe they'll give her body back to her mother. Probably not, though.

It's hot and muggy and Rachel's too tired to get herself off, but her hand still drifts downward. What else is there to do in a house with no internet, no TV, and a book she's already finished reading? Her mind drifts through hands and faces in a roulette of fantasies. When the wheel stops on one specific face, she spins it again.

 

*

 

It's not as though she's wildly attracted to him. Sometimes she looks at him and thinks of her father. His dick isn't something to write home about and the way he makes her feel isn't pretty. It's just loneliness and the fact that she knows he wants her, whatever he might tell himself. There's no other reason for him to keep coming over.

It's a Saturday night and Doug should have other plans instead of visiting someone who's barely stepped out of line in all the time he's been monitoring her, but he's visiting again.

Interrogation over, he's just staring at her.

Rachel reaches for the book on the coffee table.

"What is that?" Doug asks.

"It's a book," Rachel replies.

He's glaring again. It's hard to give a shit when it's been months and he hasn't hit her for anything she's said.

"Historical mystery. It's by Elizabeth Peters."

When he doesn't say anything, she opens it and starts reading, wondering if ignoring him will make him go away. She wants someone's company, but Doug's isn't much.

"Read it to me," he says.

Rachel glances at him. "Weird thing to get off to."

"It's not about sex."

"Everything's about sex." But she starts reading.

She already started the book yesterday. After a couple pages, when it looks like Doug is settling in for the long haul, she gives a short recap of the first couple chapters and gets a rare thank-you. She still thinks it's a sex thing, but at least Doug's not breathing heavily. She keeps reading aloud even as he stands up, but he doesn't turn to leave. Looking up whenever she needs to take a breath, she sees him start a stir-fry with some leftovers and vegetables she'd had in the fridge.

It's almost nice. If this were anyone but Doug… But it is Doug, it's always Doug, and it's only Doug. Rachel stops reading in order to eat and starts up again for a little while after, sitting on one end of the couch while Doug sits on the other. He's always so careful about never touching her unless it's to make a point.

When she reaches the end of a chapter and the end of her patience, Rachel puts the book down.

Doug's eyes are closed, his head rolled back slightly.

Rachel wants him and she doesn't. She's tired of the charade.

She pulls her legs up and comes closer. When she kisses him, pushing down on him onto the couch, Doug wraps his arms around her like a vise and kisses back. The world starts making a lot more sense.

 

*

 

It's sex, and it's more sex, and it's Doug who changes things.

"Marry me," Doug says, a year in.

"Frank's head would explode," Rachel tells him, not looking up from her book.

"I talked to Frank."

"I haven't heard any news about the president murdering you, so it must've been in private."

"We had a conversation. He's not pleased, but he's known about this, us. He said he had Seth follow me once early on.

"To see if you were drinking? Sounds exactly like him."

"You haven't answered my question."

Rachel looks at him and he's still as implacable as ever. "No."

Doug's jaw twitches, but she hasn't been worried about what he'll do to her in ages. He'll leave, mope, and come stalking back. She could set her clock by it.

"Any reason in particular?"

Because it's like drowning, it's like boiling a frog, and no one she knows has ever tried that out, but she knows for sure it would work. It's so easy to let go when there's nothing holding you down anyway.

There's Doug, there's always Doug, but he's the one who pushed her off in the first place.

"You're not kneeling," she tells him.

Doug puts his phone down and walks the distance between them. The way he drops to his knees is rather nice. "If you want a speech, too, I'll start with the fact that I don't deserve you. I'm controlling, I'm not nice, I'm the last person you should be marrying. But I— I want this. There hasn't been much that I wanted for myself, outside of Frank. You, I do. Even if I don't deserve you, even if I'll fuck it up, I love you."

He's right. But the other truth is this: Rachel doesn't know if this is love or loneliness or water scalding as she drowns. Maybe it all feels the same.

"Get me a ring," she says eventually and she snorts when he pulls one out of his pocket. It's not in a box or anything, just sitting pretty in the palm of his hand.

"I wasn't sure if it was the right size," Doug says.

"I'm surprised you don't have all my measurements by now." Still, she picks it up and slips it on. It's a little loose, but she can ask him to adjust it in a couple days.

It looks alright on her finger. Rachel's been called so many names throughout her life, but Rachel Stamper will be new.

Doug's still on his knees, looking at her with an intensity she's still unable to get used to.

"You think this won't fuck things up?"

"I don't care."

Rachel does, but she also knows that in the grand scheme of things, Underwood will always come out on top. Doug's under his umbrella and as Rachel Stamper, so will she.

There's still more reasons to say no than yes. There always will be. The column for yes is just this: despite everything, Rachel wants to.

"Let's do it," she says, and pulls him in to chase the reasons in the other column away.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
